3 ms·
For transport back to Earth, possibly not He3, Perhaps. That stuff would be worth it by weight to send back, especially if done by electromagnetic mass driver
by stcredzero 6y ago
For transport back to Earth, possibly not
He3, Perhaps. That stuff would be worth it by weight to send back, especially if done by electromagnetic mass driver and not rocket.
- DennisP 6y agoThat's often mentioned but there's a bit of a problem there. If you can get net power from fusing He3, then you can also get net power from the easier D-D reaction, and the waste product of D-D is....He3! Half directly, half as tritium which decays to He3 with a 12-year half-life. Even though D-D emits neutrons, they're at an energy similar to fission neutrons, rather than the extremely energetic (and easiest) D-T reaction. It's almost certainly going to be cheaper to get your He3 from D-D fusion, and get energy in the bargain, rather than sifting through millions of tons of lunar dirt. Fusion startup Helion, funded in part by YCombinator, is working on a hybrid D-D/D-He3 reactor, saying the combination will produce only 6% of its energy as neutron radiation, compared to 80% for D-T.
- stcredzero 6y agoOne learns something new every day!